Hearst Corporation -- the media empire that owns and oversees everything from local newscasts to hit prime-time television programs like "The Voice," the Lifetime and A&E cable networks, newspapers and some of America's most popular magazines -- is marking 125 years in the news business.

It began March 4, 1887, when William Randolph Hearst took over the San Francisco Examiner at age 23.

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"This was a newspaper that his father acquired. George Hearst was a U.S. senator," said author and journalism historian W. Joseph Campbell. "His plan was to establish a nationwide media empire, and he, by all accounts, succeeded very admirably in putting the newspaper on the map."

Soon after, Hearst started his second newspaper, the New York Journal, hiring the likes of Mark Twain and other top writers to make his mark in the industry.

"He was a very innovative guy taking on Pulitzer and other leading lights on the American journalism scene," Campbell said.

Over the next several decades, Hearst earned the nickname "The Chief" as he expanded with a chain of newspapers that were read, at one time, by one in four Americans.

"Whether it was adding and buying newspapers or creating color comics, he wanted to be first," said Mary Kay Blake, senior vice president of development at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.